What is a White Shoe?
It is slang for broker-dealers who are strongly against hostile takeover practices. Also “white shoe” is a person employed in corporate finance. At the turn of the century those in corporate finance were among the hoity-toity of society who were able to wear white shoes since they never did anything that would get them dirty. Similarly it refers to the hoity-toity who wore the white buck shoe as a fashion requirement within elite social organizations in the 1950s. Even the haughty Consuls of Ancient Rome wore white shoes.